January data reveals mo’ iMacs, mo’ Mac sales

Mac sales were up 31 percent in January.

Discussion of Mac sales may have been a bit of a yawner during Apple's earnings call last month, but sales have reportedly picked up significantly since then. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster obtained NPD's retail data for January 2013 (hat tip to MacRumors) and said Mac sales were up 31 percent year over year—an increase he calls a "significant improvement." The reason for the increase? Apple actually caught up (a bit) on its iMac supply during the month of January.

Apple announced its new, thinner iMac during a media event in late October, but didn't make the first new iMacs available until the end of November. That was just the 21.5" model, too—the 27" model didn't begin shipping until close to the end of December. At the time, it was mostly those who placed preorders who were receiving their machines; it was near impossible for regular Apple Store shoppers to find one for weeks after they began shipping.

Apple's executives cited these constraints repeatedly during the company's first quarter 2013 earnings announcement (Apple's first fiscal quarter encompasses the holiday season and ends in January). Overall Mac sales were down by 1.2 million from the same quarter in 2012—partially due to a 13-week quarter instead of the previous year's 14-week quarter—but the iMac alone was down by 700,000 units year over year. "As we projected a year ago, we were significantly constrained with iMacs," said CFO Peter Oppenheimer during January's earnings call. "We believe our Mac sales would have been higher absent those constraints."

As All Things D notes in it headline, it turns out having more iMacs to sell does help iMac sales. But that doesn't mean Apple has completely caught up with demand just yet; CEO Tim Cook warned that while Apple would "significantly increase supply" of the iMac this quarter, there would still likely be more demand than supply until later in the year.

Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui

As a self proclaimed "diehard" desktop user, who does own a smart phone, I find these numbers almost uplifting. The convergence we see in devices is exciting but at the same time comes with the price of poor sceen size and sub optimal input choices. I am glad to see someone is still making headway in the desktop market at the least.

It's nice to see for Apple, but as someone looking to buy one of the 20" models in the next few weeks, I was definitely hoping for some instant gratification in either walking into an Apple Store to pick one up, or getting one online delivered in a couple days, not waiting 3-4 weeks still.

We're looking at Year over year data for January, so what we are comparing is sales data for January 2013 and January 2012.In January 2012, the most up to date iMac had been introduced over 1.5 years earlier.In January 2013, the most up to date iMac had been introduced about a month earlier.

I'd posit that it is quite likely that having *new* iMacs to sell probably helps iMac sales quite a bit too, so only looking at the supply is likely a tad too simplistic (even given unlimited supply, the interest in new iMacs in January 2012 was probably lower than the interest in new iMacs in January 2013).

edit: Turns out that in January 2012, the most up to date iMac was only about 8 months old

Is short supply a business tactic? I would have never guessed that supply chain problems would have been an issue with Tim Cook at the helm. Either way, this type of news should only feed the company's rebound this spring/summer.

We're looking at Year over year data for January, so what we are comparing is sales data for January 2013 and January 2012.In January 2012, the most up to date iMac had been introduced over 1.5 years earlier.In January 2013, the most up to date iMac had been introduced about a month earlier.

I'd posit that it is quite likely that having *new* iMacs to sell probably helps iMac sales quite a bit too, so only looking at the supply is likely a tad too simplistic (even given unlimited supply, the interest in new iMacs in January 2012 was probably lower than the interest in new iMacs in January 2013).

That's a good point. Perhaps sales should be tied to release cycles and not fiscal quarters.

Is short supply a business tactic? I would have never guessed that supply chain problems would have been an issue with Tim Cook at the helm. Either way, this type of news should only feed the company's rebound this spring/summer.

They brought in a new manufacturing technique with friction stir welding of the aluminium shells. Getting something like that to work in a mass production environment could well have proved to be harder than was anticipated.

We're looking at Year over year data for January, so what we are comparing is sales data for January 2013 and January 2012.In January 2012, the most up to date iMac had been introduced over 1.5 years earlier.In January 2013, the most up to date iMac had been introduced about a month earlier.

I'd posit that it is quite likely that having *new* iMacs to sell probably helps iMac sales quite a bit too, so only looking at the supply is likely a tad too simplistic (even given unlimited supply, the interest in new iMacs in January 2012 was probably lower than the interest in new iMacs in January 2013).

While I agree with your line of thinking it's based on flawed data.

There was a new iMac released in May 2011.So in January 2012 the most up-to-date iMac was 8 months old.

I've been doing some research in buying a new desktop/AIO recently. A PC is obv cheaper for the same specs but getting a monitor along the same lines as the imac's adds a significant price bump than a standard 24 in 1080p monitor. I care about looks (just my preference) and I can't find a monitor that is as aesthetically pleasing to me as the Imac/thunderbolt display.

The XPS One 27in has a decent looking build quality but I don't like the video card options. The Z1 workstation is good looking and is easily upgraded but I don't need a workstation price. When I put together the cost of building my own desktop and buying a 2560 x 1440 Dell display (U2711 or better) it actually comes closer than expected to the Imac - as long as I keep the Imac's memory at 8 and upgrade it to 32 myself. I'm almost willing to spend a couple hundred more to get the sleek, compact, and beautiful look of the aluminium Imac as compared to the cheaper, black, plastic DIY PC. Of course I can't upgrade specs easily later, but the resale value is much better than anything I would build on my own.

Edit: I've never owned an Apple computer, but these days it sure it is tempting me.

We're looking at Year over year data for January, so what we are comparing is sales data for January 2013 and January 2012.In January 2012, the most up to date iMac had been introduced over 1.5 years earlier.In January 2013, the most up to date iMac had been introduced about a month earlier.

Not really. In Q4 2011 (even though it was 6 months old ) Apple sold 700K more iMacs than in Q4 2012. In some stores even before the announcement the old iMac wasn't available for sale and definately was not afterwards. Not only did Apple not ship the new ones but they also didn't ship any old ones either! That left a large number of folks with nothing to buy who were in the "iMac or nothing" camp.

In contrast, by Q1 2012 most of those folks had bought during. Holiday season because there were plenty of iMacs to buy in Q4 2011. If go back and look that was a "record number of Macs sold" quarterly report for the results of Q4 2011. To bleed some of that into the following quarter all you have to do is turn the spigot off during Q4 and it will bleed into Q1. ( presuming that most users will not buy an alternative while they are waiting. )

It is not so much a "new model" bubble, but any model *AT ALL* available bubble.

It will be April-May before will see anything like what the nominal steady state demand is.

Is short supply a business tactic? I would have never guessed that supply chain problems would have been an issue with Tim Cook at the helm. Either way, this type of news should only feed the company's rebound this spring/summer.

It can be, but it's a bad one. Now, if someone is dead-set on a new iMac/OS X platform, they'll wait, but for those who are looking for a new computer there are many, many substitutes out there. So, if when they go to the store to get their shiny new iMac and are told it's a 4-6 week wait, there's a good chance that consumer will look elsewhere to a competitor which is a double-whammy: a lost sale (lost revenue/profit) and increase in sales to a competitor.

Is short supply a business tactic? I would have never guessed that supply chain problems would have been an issue with Tim Cook at the helm. Either way, this type of news should only feed the company's rebound this spring/summer.

I do not believe that Apple has any incentive to put into place artificial scarcity. Their profits are after all on the high margins that they make on the iMacs in this case. More volume = better. Even Tim Cook doesn't have a magic wand to make a new technology just work nor perfect forecasts of what suppliers can do.

At this point, I think once supply meets demand, we'll be able to draw our conclusions of how successful this new iMac line is.

We're looking at Year over year data for January, so what we are comparing is sales data for January 2013 and January 2012.In January 2012, the most up to date iMac had been introduced over 1.5 years earlier.In January 2013, the most up to date iMac had been introduced about a month earlier.

I'd posit that it is quite likely that having *new* iMacs to sell probably helps iMac sales quite a bit too, so only looking at the supply is likely a tad too simplistic (even given unlimited supply, the interest in new iMacs in January 2012 was probably lower than the interest in new iMacs in January 2013).

While I agree with your line of thinking it's based on flawed data.

There was a new iMac released in May 2011.So in January 2012 the most up-to-date iMac was 8 months old.

the bubble has popped, and a new one wont be blown. everyone just started getting 2% less salary thanks to the returning ss tax (that most will never see when its actually time to get ss). the price of milk (3x1/2g) at costco also went up from $10 to $12, so has the price of meat, gas and what have you that you actually require.

I guess I didn't help figures much by buying a MBP. I really wanted an iMac but I had a weird feeling I would need to do iOS development while on the road so I got me a MBP. I guess I could have got an iMac and did development on the go, but then I would look like this: